When Sandy Alderson was hired as the General Manager of the New York Mets back in 2010, one of the mantras recited by beat writers and fans alike was that the Alderson era would be “Moneyball with money.”
Fast forward three cash-strapped years, and some fans and media members (here’s to looking at you, Evan Roberts) are growing weary during yet another losing season.
They say things like “I hoped that he could’ve been more creative,” which is confusing because from what I’ve been seeing, there has been quite a bit of creativity from the Mets’ front office.
He has made some great moves (Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey trades), some decent moves (signing Scott Hairston), and some bad moves (signing D.J. Carrasco), but when all of Alderson’s moves are examined as a whole, you begin to see that the Mets are operating very similar to how Billy Beane’s Oakland Athletics do.
Take Alderson’s first offseason.
He signed several pitchers coming off injuries to low-risk, high-reward deals, most notably Chris Capuano, Jason Isringhausen, and Chris Young (Boof Bonser, Blaine Boyer, and D.J. Carrasco were also signed). This gave the Mets a cheap revamping of the pitching staff, some of which worked out well, and some of which didn’t. For what it’s worth, R.A. Dickey was also signed to a two year extension during this offseason.
During the year, Alderson made two major moves: trading Francisco Rodriguez to the Milwaukee Brewers in a pure salary dump move and shipping Carlos Beltran to the San Francisco Giants for Zack Wheeler. Perhaps the biggest move other than those two was the decision to retain Jose Reyes at the deadline rather than trade him.
This was probably the right move at the time considering Reyes was going through a relative slump in July (.288/.304/.409 after hitting .385/.425/.598 in June) and was coming off a stint on the disabled list which caused him to miss some time, diminishing his value somewhat. When that is factored in with the prospect of Reyes being a Type A free agent (meaning the Mets would receive First Round and Compensation Round picks if he left[1]), allowing Reyes to play out the season then walk at the end of the year was the right move.
Handcuffed by the Wilpon-Madoff drama the next offseason, Alderson had to slash payroll while still maintaining some level of competitiveness on the field.
He traded the arbitration-eligible Angel Pagan to the Giants for Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres, a deal which looked decent at the time, but history has not been kind to, released Ryota Igarashi, signed Jon Rauch and extended Tim Byrdak.
Mike Baxter, who was a late July waiver claim, was resigned and right-handed pitcher Jeremy Hefner was claimed from the San Diego Padres.
Frank Francisco, Rob Johnson, Omar Quinatanilla, Scott Hairston, Ronny Cedeno, and Miguel Batista were also ‘notable’ acquisitions.
The season came and went without any notable transactions, than the offseason came along, and Alderson did his best job yet.
He extended David Wright to a very reasonable long-term contract to keep the captain in Flushing for the next eight years, and picked up the option on Dickey’s contract.
Then the fun began.
Even before R.A. Dickey, Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas were traded for two Top-10-in-baseball prospects (Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard), John Buck, and a lottery ticket in 17-year-old Wuilmer Becerra, the Mets were mentioned as possible suitors for Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton.
Upton was eventually traded to the Atlanta Braves.
Then everyone’s eyes turned towards Michael Bourn.
The team, of course, didn’t sign Bourn because they didn’t want to surrender their 11th pick in the 2013 draft, which ended up being Domonic Smith.
Bourn signed with the Indians.
Instead, Alderson traded third base prospect Jefry Marte to the Athletics for Collin Cowgill, Andrew Brown and Marlon Byrd were brought in on minor league deals, as was Corey Patterson and Brian Bixler.
He also rebuilt the bullpen on the cheap, signing Aaron Laffey, Pedro Feliciano, Scott Atchison, LaTroy Hawkins and Brandon Lyon to minor league deals. David Aardsma was added during the season on a minor league deal as well.
There have been a few mid-season acquisitions, namely Eric Young Jr., *shudder* Rick Ankiel, and most recently Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Mets are largely a team of players brought in cheaply by Alderson this offseason who have outperformed expectations to a certain extent.
This table illustrates the success of this past offseason. It is sorted by $/WAR, the amount of money spent by the team to gain one win above replacement, according to Fangraphs’ calculations. Stats are as of Saturday, August 24, 2013.
| Player | Games | Slash | wOBA | wRC+ | fWAR | Salary | $/WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marlon Byrd | 114 | .288/.335/.525 | .367 | 138 | 3.5 | $700,000 | $200,000 |
| Andrew Brown | 44 | .274/.322/.464 | .343 | 122 | 0.7 | $490,000 | $700,000 |
| Justin Upton | 117 | .268/.361/.489 | .368 | 136 | 3.1 | $9,750,000 | $3,145,161.29 |
| Michael Bourn | 99 | .272/.324/.360 | .305 | 94 | 1.9 | $7,000,000 | $3,684,210.53 |
The moves that Sandy Alderson has made have given the team far more bang-for-the-buck than other moves he could’ve made during the offseason. Granted, Upton and Bourn would be more long-term moves and Byrd and Brown are one or two year solutions, but that shouldn’t negate how good the signings have been.
That, after all, is the crux of Moneyball. Despite what the movie adaptation of the book would have you think, it’s not all about just getting the guys with the highest On Base Percentage, it’s about exploiting undervalued commodities to get comparable production at a cheaper price.
The Mets were a 70 win team in 2009 with a $142 million payroll, and won 79 in 2010 while paying $127 million. This year, the Mets have a payroll of $102 million (including about $50 million to Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Bobby Bonilla and Bret Saberhagen), and are on pace to finish within that 70-79 win range.
The only difference is this time around there are young players on the roster and the future looks bright.
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Joe Vasile is a play-by-play announcer for and host of ‘Ball Four with Joe Vasile’ on 91.3 FM WTSR in the Trenton area airing Tuesdays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Follow him on twitter at @JoeVasilePBP and visit his website.
[1] Of course this isn’t what ended up happening because Reyes signed with the Marlins in the 2011 offseason, and since the Marlins had also signed Heath Bell, who had a higher Elias Rating than Reyes, the Mets ended up with a Compensation Round and a Second Round pick, who ended up being Kevin Plawecki and Matt Reynods, respectively. Woo hoo.
Harvey out until 2015?
Excellent stuff Joe!
Finally someone who remembers that the Jose Reyes move was the right one for the reasons you listed there and that the Pagan trade was viewed favorably at the time of the trade.
As for the bang per fWAR anaylsis, when teams make those kind of offers they also consider the economic aspect. Trading for Justin Upton and signing Bourne helped the Braves and Indians sell more jerseys and tickets. I’m bet that signing Byrd didn’t sell 1 extra ticket.
That just isn’t true Joe. The Mets got Bay to defer 12 million and are only paying him 6 million this year. Their payroll is 82 million this year. So mediocre players get better than average results and? That makes you happy? Rick Ankiel was released by the Astros! Yet we had to endure his ineptness for how long? Now that Harvey may be out until 2015 let’s see how good a GM Alderson is. Picking up pitchers from the scrap pile goes only so far.
While that is true about Bay, getting better than average results from cheap players does make me happy when the alternative is mediocre results. The Ankiel move was a lightning-in-a-bottle type move that worked for about a week, then moved on in less than a month. Than EY Jr. was brought in and has at least stabilized the outfield to a point.
I like the flipping Marlon Byrd and John Buck for a solid prospect and a PTBNL.
I hope Sandy takes his $40+ M and spreads it around “exploiting undervalued commodities to get comparable production at a cheaper price.” This team has 7 starting players that are playing below the NL average at their respctive positions. There are a lot of holes to fill. One superstar is not going to turn this team around if the rest of the linup remains inept.
Problem for the Wilpons is how do you put fans in the seats? No offense, no bull pen and too many marginal players starting. How can a fan be optimistic when the bottom line and fiscal restraint ties your Gm hands?
Our current 25 man roster earns $21 million per year.
I think at one point the Yankee 25 man roster was around ~120 million.
It’s about using players that you know are not going to be there when your team becomes successful. Building blocks. You can always re-sign Buck as a FA as insurance and this way you don’t burn out d’Arnaud and have him catch 150-160 games. Next season when the Mets play inter-league games why not have d’Armaud DH? That way you save on his wear and tear on his body. Need a competent manager for that to happen.
It’s about using players that you know are not going to be there when your team becomes successful. Building blocks. You can always re-sign Buck as a FA as insurance and this way you don’t burn out d’Arnaud and have him catch 150-160 games.
It’s about using players that you know are not going to be there when your team becomes successful. Building blocks. You can always re-sign Buck as a FA as insurance and this way you don’t burn out d’Arnaud and have him catch 150-160 games.
sorry i have no idea what just happened